St. Stephen's Cathedral

Timeline

1. 1137

   Treaty of Mautern

   Bishop Reginmar of Passau and Margrave Leopold IV sign the Treaty of Mautern, setting aside ground for Vienna's new parish church

2. 1147

   Romanesque consecration

   On 23 September the first Romanesque church is consecrated to Saint Stephen with King Conrad III in attendance before the Second Crusade

3. 1258

   Great fire

   A great fire sweeps through Vienna and destroys most of the original Romanesque church; a rebuilt version is reconsecrated in 1263

4. 1304

   Gothic reconstruction begins

   King Albert I orders the construction of a three-aisled Gothic choir east of the existing church, initiating the long Gothic transformation

5. 1359

   South tower cornerstone

   On 7 April Duke Rudolf IV the Founder lays the cornerstone of the south tower and conceives the plan to wrap the old church in a new Gothic shell

6. 1433

   South tower completed

   After 74 years of construction the 136.7-metre south tower, the Steffl, is completed as the third-tallest church spire in the world

7. 1469

   Diocese established

   On 18 January Pope Paul II establishes the Diocese of Vienna at the request of Emperor Frederick III, making St. Stephen's its cathedral

8. 1683

   Second Siege of Vienna

   After repelling the Ottoman siege, captured cannon are melted down and cast in 1711 into the 21-tonne Pummerin bell hung in the south tower

9. 1722

   Elevated to archdiocese

   Under Emperor Charles VI, Pope Innocent XIII elevates the Diocese of Vienna to an archdiocese and St. Stephen's to a metropolitan cathedral

10. 1782

    Mozart's wedding

    On 4 August the 26-year-old Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart marries Constanze Weber in the cathedral, an occasion now memorialised by an annual concert

11. 1791

    Mozart's funeral

    On 6 December the funeral of Mozart, who died at 35, is held at St. Stephen's before his burial in a communal grave at St. Marx Cemetery

12. 1945

    Wartime devastation

    On 11-12 April looting fires during the German retreat destroy the tile roof, collapse the Pummerin bell, and severely damage the Pilgram pulpit

13. 1952

    Post-war reconstruction

    A seven-year reconstruction funded by all nine federal states completes on 23 April with a rededication mass, hailed as the symbol of Austria's renewal

14. 2001

    UNESCO World Heritage

    St. Stephen's Cathedral is inscribed as a central component of the UNESCO World Heritage Site Historic Centre of Vienna covering the Ringstrasse area

Detailed History

St. Stephen's Cathedral traces its earliest origins to 1137, when Bishop Reginmar of Passau and Margrave Leopold IV signed the Treaty of Mautern, allocating ground beyond the old Roman walls for a new parish church. Excavations in 2000 uncovered carbon-dated 4th-century graves beneath the cathedral floor, suggesting an even older sacred function on the site. The first Romanesque church was consecrated to Saint Stephen, the protomartyr of Christianity, on 23 September 1147 in the presence of King Conrad III of Germany as he prepared to depart on the Second Crusade. A great fire in 1258 destroyed most of that building, and a rebuilt Romanesque structure was reconsecrated on 23 April 1263. In 1304 King Albert I ordered a Gothic three-aisled choir, and his son Duke Albert II consecrated the Albertine Choir in 1340. The true visionary was Duke Rudolf IV the Founder, who on 7 April 1359 laid the cornerstone of the south tower and conceived the plan to envelop the older Romanesque structure within an entirely new Gothic cathedral. By 1430 the medieval church had been demolished from within, and in 1433 master builder Hans Prachatitz completed the 136.7-metre south tower. The north tower, begun in 1450 but abandoned in 1511, remains unfinished at 68 metres, later capped with a Renaissance lantern in 1579. On 18 January 1469 Pope Paul II established the Diocese of Vienna at the petition of Emperor Frederick III, and in 1722 Pope Innocent XIII elevated the see to an archbishopric. After the Second Siege of Vienna in 1683, captured Ottoman cannon were melted down to cast the great Pummerin bell of 1711, weighing 21 tonnes. In 1809 Napoleon's troops shelled the cathedral but the emperor himself reportedly ordered the bombardment halted. During the closing days of the Second World War, retreating German commander Sepp Dietrich ordered the cathedral destroyed, but Wehrmacht Captain Gerhard Klinkicht disobeyed. Nevertheless on 12 April 1945 a looting fire collapsed the roof, the Pummerin bell, and damaged the Pilgram pulpit. Between 1948 and 1952 the nine Austrian states each financed specific elements of reconstruction: Tyrol the tile roof, Upper Austria the recast Pummerin in 1951. The rededication mass on 23 April 1952 was hailed as the spiritual rebirth of post-war Austria.

Cultural Significance

St. Stephen's Cathedral was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2001 as a central component of the Historic Centre of Vienna, the area bounded by the Ringstrasse boulevard. It serves as the legal, religious, and touristic heart of the Austrian capital, with the silhouette of its south tower reproduced on the city's official coat of arms. The cathedral's link to the House of Habsburg is especially deep. Emperor Frederick III, who reigned from 1452 to 1493, lies beneath a red marble sarcophagus in the south choir, while Duke Rudolf IV the Founder is venerated as the spiritual patron of the building. Beneath the floor, the Habsburg viscera chambers preserve the intestines of sovereigns from Empress Maria Theresa down to Emperor Franz Joseph I, in keeping with the unique tradition of triple burial: the body in the Capuchin Crypt, the heart in the Augustinian Church, and the viscera at St. Stephen's. The musical heritage is equally extraordinary. Joseph Haydn served as a choirboy here from 1740 to 1749, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was wed to Constanze Weber on 4 August 1782, returning for his funeral on 6 December 1791 before being interred at St. Marx Cemetery. The position of Domkapellmeister, held by Johann Joseph Fux and Johann Georg Albrechtsberger among others, was one of the great cradles of the Viennese Classical school.

Architectural Details

St. Stephen's is a three-aisled Gothic basilica laid out as a Latin cross on an east-west axis, measuring 107 metres in length, 39 metres in nave width, and 28 metres in vault height. The western façade preserves the Romanesque Giants' Door of 1230-1245 flanked by the twin Heathen Towers at 66 metres, while the eastern body and the south tower display the High Gothic style introduced from 1304. This juxtaposition of Romanesque and Gothic makes St. Stephen's one of the most stylistically expressive cathedrals in Central Europe. The 136.7-metre Steffl is the third-tallest church spire in the world after Ulm and Cologne, rising through four progressively tapering octagonal stages and completed in 1433. The truncated north tower was capped with a Renaissance lantern in 1579 at only 68 metres. The most extraordinary feature is the steep tile roof: 230,000 glazed tiles form the Habsburg eagle on the south slope and the arms of Vienna and the Republic of Austria on the north. After the 1945 fire, the roof was rebuilt over a steel truss between 1948 and 1952. Interior masterpieces include Pilgram's 1513 pulpit with its Fenstergucker, the Wiener Neustadt Altarpiece of 1447, Frederick III's tomb of 1493, and the Pummerin bell recast in 1951 at 20.13 tonnes, the largest in Austria.